


Dinner and a Movie and Slayage

by Quinara



Series: Cryptozoology [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Community: sb_fag_ends, F/M, Kitsune, season: post-series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-14
Updated: 2011-04-14
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinara/pseuds/Quinara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy and Spike meet a fox, but there are cunning plans all round.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner and a Movie and Slayage

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 'kitsune' prompt at the LJ/DW comm sb_fag_ends.

It was a truth too widely unacknowledged that Buffy liked dates. She liked getting dressed up, wearing uncomfortably pretty shoes and drifting through the night on a carefree bubble of fruity wine and nouvelle cuisine. Obviously, she hadn’t actually _been_ on a lot of these dates, what with her Slayer-enforced removal from the regular dating pool long before she'd hit twenty-one, but she’d known how these things were supposed to go, even as she’d guilefully swung her sneakered feet in ice cream parlours.

Thankfully she had a sister who could tell her boyfriend exactly how to run a belated birthday celebration. Unfortunately her boyfriend was Spike, so it hadn’t tired him out: first he’d preened about having the prettiest girlfriend, then he’d made love to his _bleu_ -cooked beef; after that he’d sniffed his way through _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_ , all of which had left him in a mood that _could_ have been described as content, but was best described as Hornmeister 3000.

“Spike…” she moaned in an alleyway off Leicester Square, helpless even though he and his hardy leather coat were the ones pushed against the wall. His hands were strong, mouth frankly unavoidable, but she tried to explain nonetheless, “We’re not having sex in this alley. It was totally… Pathetic veracity or whatever when we did it before. And two…” She gasped, but her eyes were still drawn to the City of Westminster wheelie bins behind the restaurant not far away. “That fox is watching me.” It was this second point, which was true, that was most off-putting.

“One,” Spike nevertheless replied in order, squeezing her closer and sucking on her jaw. (All the scar tissue actually meant she’d lost most feeling in her neck.) “It’s pathetic _fallacy_ , you adorable fucking goose. And two…” OK, if her hand snuck behind his belt, did that mean she was officially giving up? “What was bloody two again?”

There was a crash, suddenly, like metal against cobbles. Jumping away from each other in a second, she had a stake in her hand (no time for a pun) and Spike had his fists ready for a fight. The alleyway was still empty, though, apart from the fox – but the fox leapt down from the wheelie bin and stalked towards them, looking oddly relieved. “Hey, you’re a slayer, right?” it said, and was apparently a she if fox voices matched human.

“What gave it away?” Buffy asked, crossing her arms, now very embarrassed about the public make-out session.

The demon(?) blinked her big sloe eyes. “Erm, the stake, mostly.” That made Spike laugh, which Buffy didn’t think was fair. Foxes were supposed to rip apart your trash, not your self-esteem… “Yeah,” this fox continued anyway, “so, I was hoping you could help me? A friend of mine works in the restaurant you ate at, and she mentioned you’d been by…”

“Oh, that Noriko bird?” Spike cut in again. He always remembered people’s names; Buffy remembered she’d been a student and had the most amazing red hair ever, dammit. Although, that was possibly explained if peopley foxes existed. (Foxy people?)

This fox nodded at Spike’s question. “I can’t pass,” she said, “and, like, neither can my flatmates, so I didn’t know who to ask; everyone’s so untrustworthy…” Then she started pacing, worrying with her big tail high behind her. “I’m having a massive panic, because my parents are coming to visit, but a Skench demon got in our house and they’re resistant to magic, and Arun tried but he got splatted and we didn’t know what to do, and we can definitely pay you maybe something… We’re up in Haringey; I could meet you outside Turnpike Lane?”

Oh, she wanted something _slain_ , Buffy finally worked out.

Sex or violence, then – that seemed to be the choice on offer. Weighing up the options, Buffy realised she’d be kidding herself to think she’d be happy on a date without one or the other. And recently? One need had been getting way less attention.

Besides; the night was young. If they could sort out this gay heron stuff, then they could always…

* * *

“You honestly don’t need to pay me,” Buffy told Ayuka, the kitsune, later. It had only taken one satisfying throw of a kitchen knife to kill the Skench – barely any effort at all – letting Spike kick back with Tom (a Srassops flatmate) and ask whether the Magical School still had 50p yak urine mixers in the union bar. Apparently they were a pound now.

“No, take it,” Ayuka insisted, buffeting the notes against Buffy’s hand with some sort of telekinetic charm. “We were saving to bribe a Fyarl or – yeah. You’ve been great; we’re really grateful.”

Letting the paper into her fingers, Buffy found herself calculating that there was enough for a guilt-free purchase of something rather fabulously slutty, shiny or sharp… It was very hard to see the downside. OK, she’d retired with what Faith called a wicked sweet pension, but holding hard cash really let you put the extra frip in your frippery. “Is it a problem, then,” Buffy asked, with the beginnings of an idea, “getting people who can fight on the up and up?”

“It’s impossible,” Tom confirmed, as he went to rummage under the sink and begin the clean-up operation. “And all the pest demons are getting resistant to magic, that’s the worst thing.”

“Huh,” Buffy pondered, meeting Spike’s eyes with the question. This had been kind of annoying in her best heels, but regularly she and Spike needed something to do. And, more than that, she was sure her best heels could be better, without eating away the money for her future.

Rising to his feet, Spike shrugged as if to say, _I’m game,_ and she supposed it hadn’t been that much of an imposition on him thus far.

“Say, let me give you my number…” Buffy concluded, smiling at Ayuka as the deciding thought crossed her mind.

Because – more money? That could only mean more dates.


End file.
